William
07-22-2010, 04:18 AM
Tour de France 2010: Circle of Death marks century of suffering
The Col du Tourmalet has broken the best and today it puts the riders' final reserves of spirit and courage to the test.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jul/22/tour-de-france-mountain-stage-centenary
When Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck fight for victory in the 2010 Tour de France on the pitiless slopes of the Col du Tourmalet this afternoon, they will be accompanied by the words of Henri Desgrange as he surveyed the success of his decision, exactly 100 years ago, to add stages in the high mountains to his great invention. "The Tour de France only became the Tour de France," the founder said, "when we sent the riders into the mountains."
The Tourmalet was the first of those mountains, inserted into the eighth edition of the race in 1910 after Alphonse Steinès, Desgrange's assistant, had reconnoitred the route the previous year. Discovering an unmade road rendered impassable by snow, Steinès dismissed his driver and continued on foot. He got lost, fell down a ravine and had to be rescued, but the following morning, in a gendarmerie in the hamlet of Barèges on the way down from the 2,115m summit, he cabled his boss: "Tourmalet crossed stop very good road stop perfectly practicable stop Steines."
Whether or not they know his name, generations of riders have had reason both to bless and to curse the assistant race director's judgment. The first to register his opinion, when the race went over the pass on 21 July 1910, was Octave Lapize, who was seen to be walking alongside his heavy single-speed bike in a state of some distress. The next man to arrive, half an hour later, was Gustave Garrigou, who had actually managed to ride his machine up the final gradient.
As Lapize crossed the summit of the next pass, the Col d'Aubisque, he hurled a famous imprecation at the commissaires. "You are all assassins," he shouted with what remained of his strength. "No human being should be put through an ordeal like this. That's enough for me." Nevertheless he carried on, thereby establishing a precedent for an ineluctable combination of cyclists, mountains and suffering. Having set off from Luchon, the riders had already covered 140km, and still had 150km to go to the finish in Bayonne. Ten days later Lapize was celebrating victory in Paris, with Garrigou second, having covered a route of 4,737km in 31 days.
Today's riders enjoy the benefits of asphalted roads, carbon-fibre bikes weighing a fraction of the contraptions of a century ago, scientifically developed fitness programmes and diets (in 1910 the defending champion, François Faber, set off into the Pyrenees with 12 veal cutlets in his bag, saying, "It's because I eat like four men that I can fight against five"). Today's stage measures a mere 174km, which they will cover in around five hours.
In many respects, life is far easier for them. Three years after Lapize's pioneering ascent, Eugène Christophe was on the slopes of the Tourmalet when a collision with a car broke his front fork. After pushing the damaged bike 15km to Sainte Marie de Campan, he used the village smithy to mend the break. But the regulations of those days sternly stipulated that the riders had to do all the work on their bikes themselves, and Christophe had enlisted the aid of a boy to operate the forge's bellows while he made the repair. His 10-minute penalty added to the four hours he had lost ended his hopes of victory. Nowadays team vehicles are at hand to provide a new bike within seconds of a problem occurring, while some adjustments can be made on the move, by mechanics leaning out of the car to wield an Allen key. The faces of this year's riders, however, have demonstrated that the suffering persists.
Some riders, a select few, have made light of the Tourmalet's challenge. The great Spanish climber Federico Bahamontes, forever known as the Eagle of Toledo, led over the summit on four occasions, and in 1954 he even stopped for an ice cream to let the others catch up and accompany him on the descent, a skill at which he was less adept.
The Pyrenees, of which the Tourmalet is the great symbol in the race's iconography, may not be as familiar to casual enthusiasts as the Alps, but they are riddled with memories of heroism. Many connoisseurs relish the way they present the riders with one challenge after another, testing the final reserves of spirit and courage. Not for nothing are the mountains around the Tourmalet known as the Circle of Death.
In 1947 Jean Robic, the bad-tempered Frenchman who sported an unstylish leather crash helmet, rode alone across four of the cols, including the Tourmalet, to capture the stage from Luchon to Pau, later snatching victory on the final day and winning the Tour without ever wearing the leader's yellow jersey. Two years later the stage was reversed and Robic won again, although two Italians were depicted that day in one of cycling's most indelible images, when a photographer captured Fausto Coppi sharing his water bottle with Gino Bartali, his greatest rival, on a blisteringly hot day.
It was in 1969 that Eddy Merckx led the way up the Tourmalet with a group including Roger Pingeon and Raymond Poulidor, en route to winning the first of his five Tours. Just below the summit he attacked and rode alone for 140km to reach the stage finish in Mourenx eight minutes ahead of his pursuers.
Before this year's riders even reach the Tourmalet they will have to tackle the Col de Marie-Blanque, barely half its big brother's stature but offering almost 10km of gradients that average a punishing 9%. "A tense, cheerless climb" is how Graeme Fife describes it in his fine volume, The Great Road Climbs of the Pyrenees. And then, to stretch the aching legs still further, and perhaps to sow further doubts, comes the 1,474m Col du Soulor, with a plunging, twisting descent – particularly dangerous if the predicted rain arrives – before the riders gather themselves for the final major climb of this year's Tour, and a mountain-top finish that may have a decisive effect on the final standings in Paris on Sunday.
As Contador and Schleck soar up to play among peaks where birds of prey wheel on the thermals, which of them will be the eagle and which the vulture? Having been let down by his machinery in the very act of attacking on the other side of the Tourmalet on Tuesday, the boyish Luxembourgeois knows this is his last chance to claw back an eight-second deficit and open up the lead of three minutes or so that would make it hard for the Spaniard to exploit his known superiority in Saturday's 52km time trial.
Schleck may go for an early attack on the Marie-Blanque or the Soulor, although Contador's Astana lieutenants – notably Alexander Vinokourov, Daniel Navarro and Paolo Tiralongo – appear well capable of guarding the yellow jersey's interests and neutralising a concerted effort from the well-drilled Saxo Bank boys. More likely Schleck will hope to burn Contador off his wheel with a solo break on the lower slopes of the Tourmalet. Success would not guarantee him the glory on the Champs-Elysées, but it would give this Tour its most powerful moment as well as paying the finest of birthday tributes to a mountain whose brutal demands have shaped history.
The Col du Tourmalet has broken the best and today it puts the riders' final reserves of spirit and courage to the test.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jul/22/tour-de-france-mountain-stage-centenary
When Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck fight for victory in the 2010 Tour de France on the pitiless slopes of the Col du Tourmalet this afternoon, they will be accompanied by the words of Henri Desgrange as he surveyed the success of his decision, exactly 100 years ago, to add stages in the high mountains to his great invention. "The Tour de France only became the Tour de France," the founder said, "when we sent the riders into the mountains."
The Tourmalet was the first of those mountains, inserted into the eighth edition of the race in 1910 after Alphonse Steinès, Desgrange's assistant, had reconnoitred the route the previous year. Discovering an unmade road rendered impassable by snow, Steinès dismissed his driver and continued on foot. He got lost, fell down a ravine and had to be rescued, but the following morning, in a gendarmerie in the hamlet of Barèges on the way down from the 2,115m summit, he cabled his boss: "Tourmalet crossed stop very good road stop perfectly practicable stop Steines."
Whether or not they know his name, generations of riders have had reason both to bless and to curse the assistant race director's judgment. The first to register his opinion, when the race went over the pass on 21 July 1910, was Octave Lapize, who was seen to be walking alongside his heavy single-speed bike in a state of some distress. The next man to arrive, half an hour later, was Gustave Garrigou, who had actually managed to ride his machine up the final gradient.
As Lapize crossed the summit of the next pass, the Col d'Aubisque, he hurled a famous imprecation at the commissaires. "You are all assassins," he shouted with what remained of his strength. "No human being should be put through an ordeal like this. That's enough for me." Nevertheless he carried on, thereby establishing a precedent for an ineluctable combination of cyclists, mountains and suffering. Having set off from Luchon, the riders had already covered 140km, and still had 150km to go to the finish in Bayonne. Ten days later Lapize was celebrating victory in Paris, with Garrigou second, having covered a route of 4,737km in 31 days.
Today's riders enjoy the benefits of asphalted roads, carbon-fibre bikes weighing a fraction of the contraptions of a century ago, scientifically developed fitness programmes and diets (in 1910 the defending champion, François Faber, set off into the Pyrenees with 12 veal cutlets in his bag, saying, "It's because I eat like four men that I can fight against five"). Today's stage measures a mere 174km, which they will cover in around five hours.
In many respects, life is far easier for them. Three years after Lapize's pioneering ascent, Eugène Christophe was on the slopes of the Tourmalet when a collision with a car broke his front fork. After pushing the damaged bike 15km to Sainte Marie de Campan, he used the village smithy to mend the break. But the regulations of those days sternly stipulated that the riders had to do all the work on their bikes themselves, and Christophe had enlisted the aid of a boy to operate the forge's bellows while he made the repair. His 10-minute penalty added to the four hours he had lost ended his hopes of victory. Nowadays team vehicles are at hand to provide a new bike within seconds of a problem occurring, while some adjustments can be made on the move, by mechanics leaning out of the car to wield an Allen key. The faces of this year's riders, however, have demonstrated that the suffering persists.
Some riders, a select few, have made light of the Tourmalet's challenge. The great Spanish climber Federico Bahamontes, forever known as the Eagle of Toledo, led over the summit on four occasions, and in 1954 he even stopped for an ice cream to let the others catch up and accompany him on the descent, a skill at which he was less adept.
The Pyrenees, of which the Tourmalet is the great symbol in the race's iconography, may not be as familiar to casual enthusiasts as the Alps, but they are riddled with memories of heroism. Many connoisseurs relish the way they present the riders with one challenge after another, testing the final reserves of spirit and courage. Not for nothing are the mountains around the Tourmalet known as the Circle of Death.
In 1947 Jean Robic, the bad-tempered Frenchman who sported an unstylish leather crash helmet, rode alone across four of the cols, including the Tourmalet, to capture the stage from Luchon to Pau, later snatching victory on the final day and winning the Tour without ever wearing the leader's yellow jersey. Two years later the stage was reversed and Robic won again, although two Italians were depicted that day in one of cycling's most indelible images, when a photographer captured Fausto Coppi sharing his water bottle with Gino Bartali, his greatest rival, on a blisteringly hot day.
It was in 1969 that Eddy Merckx led the way up the Tourmalet with a group including Roger Pingeon and Raymond Poulidor, en route to winning the first of his five Tours. Just below the summit he attacked and rode alone for 140km to reach the stage finish in Mourenx eight minutes ahead of his pursuers.
Before this year's riders even reach the Tourmalet they will have to tackle the Col de Marie-Blanque, barely half its big brother's stature but offering almost 10km of gradients that average a punishing 9%. "A tense, cheerless climb" is how Graeme Fife describes it in his fine volume, The Great Road Climbs of the Pyrenees. And then, to stretch the aching legs still further, and perhaps to sow further doubts, comes the 1,474m Col du Soulor, with a plunging, twisting descent – particularly dangerous if the predicted rain arrives – before the riders gather themselves for the final major climb of this year's Tour, and a mountain-top finish that may have a decisive effect on the final standings in Paris on Sunday.
As Contador and Schleck soar up to play among peaks where birds of prey wheel on the thermals, which of them will be the eagle and which the vulture? Having been let down by his machinery in the very act of attacking on the other side of the Tourmalet on Tuesday, the boyish Luxembourgeois knows this is his last chance to claw back an eight-second deficit and open up the lead of three minutes or so that would make it hard for the Spaniard to exploit his known superiority in Saturday's 52km time trial.
Schleck may go for an early attack on the Marie-Blanque or the Soulor, although Contador's Astana lieutenants – notably Alexander Vinokourov, Daniel Navarro and Paolo Tiralongo – appear well capable of guarding the yellow jersey's interests and neutralising a concerted effort from the well-drilled Saxo Bank boys. More likely Schleck will hope to burn Contador off his wheel with a solo break on the lower slopes of the Tourmalet. Success would not guarantee him the glory on the Champs-Elysées, but it would give this Tour its most powerful moment as well as paying the finest of birthday tributes to a mountain whose brutal demands have shaped history.